The current discourse about the election of a speaker for our new National Assembly has been variously described and assessed but here I will discuss the opportunity it presents us to identify and contemplate some important issues, the nature of which are likely to stay with us as we go forward in the present political context.
Firstly, we have become so accustomed to the political operations of a Westminster-type winner-takes-all system in which opposition is muted and the government can act with freedom and thus speed, now that we have a political arrangement that requires consensus and discussion, we are overly concerned about the acrimony and apparent untimeliness that result.
This is clearly the case with the current discourse about who should be the next speaker, which only signals the fact that should we ever arrive at a permanent shared-governance/coalition arrangement we had better be prepared for this kind of quarrelsome and “untimely” environment.
In most of Europe, where coalition governments are the norm, the people and systems have learned to cope with this kind of political process. For example, it took the Belgians 541 days after their April 2010elections to negotiate a national government and this was not unusual. In 1979, 1988, 1991 and 1995, it took them 106, 148, 103 and 33 days respectively to form a national government. Germany took about a month after the 1991, 1994 and 1998 elections to form governments and its next door neighbour Austria took an average of over two months to establish governments in 1990,1994 and 1996.
Secondly, it is common knowledge that adequate preparation, which includes all-round consultations and discussions, is critical to successful negotiations, but one is left to wonder if this is appreciated by the leaders of the present opposition. For example, Mr. Moses Nagamootoo made an ill-advised public suggestion that the AFC could seek support for his candidacy for the speakership from the PPP/C, and Mr. Raphael Trotman immediately tried to ameliorate the possible deleterious impact of this statement by saying that no such thing is being contemplated by the AFC. Mr. David Granger, APNU’s presidential candidate, appreciating the impression Mr. Nagamootoo’s statement could have on his constituency, but possibly also seeing the opportunity to close out a problematical candidate, quickly repudiated him as unsuitable for the post of speaker.
But that is only half of it: Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan stepped in to confirm Mr. Nagamootoo’s suitability only to have Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, APNU’s prime ministerial candidate, also confirm Mr. Nagamootoo’s suitability, even if within a somewhat different framework!
Mr. Nagamootoo comes from a political context that is accustomed to hard-ball politics and in my opinion, that is all he was voicing when he made the above suggestion. I myself have said to all and sundry that if an agreement cannot be reached between the AFC and APNU it might be in the interest of the PPP/C to support Mr. Nagamootoo. If this is done voluntarily by the PPP/C, it will not harm the AFC, particularly in the eyes of its substantial Indian supporters.
Moreover, such a move might not only improve the image of the PPP/C as a new-born compromiser but give Mr. Nagamootoo occasion to pause and consider where his interest really lies.
For persons who are involved in sensitive negotiations, the above surely smacks of conceptual and practical confusion; but let us proceed to more substantive issues.
It is argued in Mr. Nagamootoo’s favour that the AFC and he personally are responsible for the present favourable national political equation. One should therefore be careful about an outcome which undermines the AFC and presents an opportunity for the PPP/C to win back its traditional supporters and turn the political clock backwards. But APNU must have similar concerns.
Untoward action might lead to disillusionment among its supporters, particularly the youths, thus affecting its capacity to effectively mobilise in the future.
It is for these reasons that Mr. Granger then might have simply been seizing the opportunity provided by Mr. Nagamootoo to close out what he considered a troublesome proposal.
But regardless of his underlying reasons, it was a risky negotiation strategy for, as the AFC has pointed out, it speaks to the kind of highhandedness upon which a medium to long term relationship of trust, so necessary in the present context, cannot be built.
Here again we must hope that adequate preparation and caution, particularly in making public statements, will in the future avoid these kinds of situations.
APNU has stated that it is prepared to share the speakership with the AFC, with it taking the first half term. In my opinion this is a good suggestion: the WPA had once rotated its parliamentary seat so, if agreement is reached by the two parties, rotation should not pose a major problem.
However, it does not appear that the suggestion was transmitted to the AFC and that that party was given the opportunity to debate and decide upon it before it was made public! It therefore allows adequate space for hardliners in both the AFC and APNU, who might be opposed to the entire proposal or aspects of it, to attempt to kill it at birth or at least make the negotiation process more difficult.
However, given all that has taken place on the issue so far and the comparative numerical parliamentary size of the two parties aside, it could be argued that if accepted as proposed, the sharing arrangement could take both Mr. Nagamootoo and Mr. Granger off the hook.
In my view there is substance to the contention that the former’s controversial statement indicates that he is not yet imbued with the non-partisan, milder, political culture of the AFC. Crossing the floor and making a few positive/negative statements on an elections platform is no proof of that. Indeed, one may ask, given Mr. Nagamootoo’s background, whether it is really sensible for the united opposition to make him a ‘neutral’ speaker when he has not yet earned his spurs on the opposition benches.
Would it not make much more sense for the AFC to utilise Mr. Nagamootoo’s experience on its benches for the first period of the proposed shared arrangement? Furthermore, such an approach would certainly serve to dissipate Mr. Granger’s concern as to the suitability of Mr. Nagamootoo. The drawback here is that given the fragility of the present context, the second part of this arrangement might not materialise!
Apart from the issue of adequate preparation, publicity is essential for transparency but it could also be detrimental to the negotiation process if not properly managed. Nowadays one cannot exclude the media if for no other reason than that media careers are made on the individual practitioner’s capacity to access information.
Sensitivity about what one says about one’s own position and how it is likely to impact upon the negotiation process is vital and studied press releases and where necessary, joint press statements, are useful instruments.
